New Approach for Detection of Normal Alternative Splicing Events and Aberrant Spliceogenic Transcripts with Long-Range PCR and Deep RNA Sequencing

Abstract

RNA sequencing is a promising technique for detecting normal and aberrant RNA isoforms. Here, we present a new single-gene, straightforward 1-day hands-on protocol for detection of splicing alterations with deep RNA sequencing from blood. We have validated our method’s accuracy by detecting previously published normal splicing isoforms of STK11 gene. Additionally, the same technique was used to provide the first comprehensive catalogue of naturally occurring alternative splicing events of the NBN gene in blood. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our approach can be used for detection of splicing impairment caused by genetic variants. Therefore, we were able to reclassify three variants of uncertain significance: NBN:c.584G>A, STK11:c.863-5_863-3delCTC and STK11:c.615G>A. Due to the simplicity of our approach, it can be incorporated into any molecular diagnostics laboratory for determination of variant’s impact on splicing.

Keywords

• splicing
• RNA sequencing
• alternative splicing
• germline variant
• spliceogenic variant
• alternative transcript